Send Your Little Princess to Dreamland in Style

Review by mmcphee in Books in Education

January, 15 2004

Pros: Sturdy, fun, safe all girl bed

Cons: Night light eats batteries, didn't receive correct parts

The Basics The Step 2 Dream Castle bed It is an adorable and sturdy bed. The frame is all plastic and there are no sharp corners for children to get hurt on. There is a wooden platform to hold the mattress (not included).

Right now we only have it set up as a toddler bed (using her old crib mattress) which holds up to 50 lbs but it is good to know that we can convert it to a twin bed that will hold up to 200 lbs. The pieces that are needed to convert the bed from toddler to twin store under the mattress platform. No need to keep track of the extra pieces.

2 turrets form the headboard. Each one has a windowsill at bed level that forms a shelf. The tops of the turrets are solid and create two more shelves at the top. The footboard is actually a drawbridge that can be folded in toward the bed, or out and used as a desk.

It took my husband about an hour to assemble the bed. We both agreed that it is nice that the stickers come pre-attached.

The Good There are very few "girl" beds out there. Most of the fun beds seemed to be geared toward boys with their car and truck themes. We bought this bed for my 2 year old for her birthday. She calls this her "castle bed". After only sleeping in it for 2 weeks we went on vacation. For the first 2 nights away she cried to "sleep in castle bed".

The sides of the bed are just high enough over the mattress to act as bed rails so our daughter cannot fall out, but easy enough for her to climb in and out safely. The sides are also wide enough for me to be able to sit on comfortably when I read to her at bedtime.

When the drawbridge is positioned out my 2 year old likes to climb up on it a crawl through the window. I was concerned at first that the head of the bed might tip up due to the weight at the footboard. But this bed is designed to with stand all of the ways active kids can think to use it. The bed stays firmly on the floor even when my daughter hangs on the end of the drawbridge.

The Bad We did have one major problem in that we received two left hand sides of the bed. The problem was immediately obvious to my husband and I when we took the pieces out of the box. Fortunately the store that we purchased the bed from had others in stock and they were able to switch out the pieces for us. Still, it does make me question the quality control at Step 2.

I thought the built in night light was going to be great. However, a set of batteries lasts only a little longer than a about a week. Right now the light is "broken" until we purchase some rechargeable batteries as we are spending a fortune on replacing the 4 AA batteries (not included) on a weekly basis.

My Experience My husband and I were a little nervous about making the transition from crib to "big girl" bed. However, after our daughter took a tumble out of her crib we had no choice.

We outfitted the Dream Castle with the Disney Princess sheet and comforter collection to round out the theme as well as some princess pajamas. I think making the change as fun as possible made the transition easier on our 2 year old. It did take two nights before she was completely comfortable in her new surroundings.

My husband and I did a lot of back and forth before deciding to spend this much on a bed. The deciding factor for us was that we both agreed we would have loved any type of "cool" bed when we were children. So, we took this opportunity to hopefully give our little princess some great memories of nights she slept in a castle.